Quote:Statistics compiled by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission1 indicate that there were 88 baseball-related deaths to children in this age group between 1973 and 1995, an average of about 4 per year. This average has not changed since 1973. Of these, 43% were from direct-ball impact with the chest (commotio cordis);

Strikes to the chest can cause death in children a lot more than I thought.

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The2nd ammendment, it makes all the others possible. <///<

A possible point that will do this is CV 17 on center line between the nipples. The hit, timed correctly with the electrical activity of the heart, causes R on T phenomenon which is a potentially lethal arhythmia. However, many points on the chest could distress a compromised heart. It is very sad when things like this happen obviously. It is a reminder to us all. In the absense of a defibrillator, a correctly placed and aimed strike to the heart shu point (UB 15) specifically on the right side, aimed towards the heart, can correct the problem. A witnessed arrest like this can also be corrected with a "precordial thump" which is a CPR move consisting of a hammer fist to that same CV 17 spot. When I say "can" I mean just that: possible, not guaranteed or will correct the problem.

Because of accidents like this, I think that dojos that train at higher levels of intensity, should have A.E.D. devices on site, and should have owners and senior instructors trained in their use and in CPR. Just my humble opinion.

Quote:Statistics compiled by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission1 indicate that there were 88 baseball-related deaths to children in this age group between 1973 and 1995, an average of about 4 per year. This average has not changed since 1973. Of these, 43% were from direct-ball impact with the chest (commotio cordis);

Strikes to the chest can cause death in children a lot more than I thought.

to put that number in perspective:

Quote:Killed by Lightning

Lightning-related fatality, injury, and damage reports in the US were summarized for 36 years since 1959, based on the NOAA publication Storm Data. There were 3239 deaths, 9818 injuries, and 19,814 property-damage reports from lightning during this period. On average, 90 people are killed every year in the U.S. by lightning. NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS SR-193

That is right. It is reserved for advanced CPR practice. Maybe I should have said that. Where the domain of discourse was martial arts and not CPR, I addressed the technical mechanical aspect and not the practice aspect. Thank you for clearing that up in case anyone may have thought I was instructing them to do this.

So, Ed, are you saying that this only happens as an accident? I'm betting the same point in the chest is hit with the baseball on every occasion where this occurs... the results speak for themselves.

As for "putting it in perspective", you could have compared this accident with the number of people killed falling off bridges wearing red shoes... it's apples and oranges. If I didn't learn anything else from statistics class in college, it's that you can skew "raw numbers" to look like anything "in perspective".

It's probably too complicated to understand that the kids killed are doing the same "repeatable" movement, get hit at the same angle on the same point, with the same result. I suspect, but have no proof, that the speed of the baseballs was also very consistent.

The youth baseball leagues invoked a rule to force all the players to start wearing helments because of the number of deaths and serious injury from being hit in the head by baseballs, but that was a "repeatable injury"? I can't tell you how many kyusho points and DM points are located in the head and surrounding area without taking time to count, but they were protected by a helment because of repeatable injuries. Now, whether the force was delivered by a baseball or a fist, could make an arguable point, but I think you could see that "force is force" in that instance.

I agree that these accidents are tragic, and my heart goes out to the families of the children, but the argument regarding DM has always been whether or not the "strikes to a point" caused a repeatable injury, and whether or not you could train to deliver such a strike. I know it's a false premise to argue that it can "only happen as an accident"... as does anybody that practices kyusho jitsu or DM.

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What man is a man that does not make the world a better place?... from "Kingdom of Heaven"

statistics can serve to give relative perspective. For instance, if many more car accident deaths are with people who don't wear a seatbelt, than with people who do - then it gives a logical indicator in the decision to buckle up or not. However, there are always those who purposely choose to not wear a seatbelt because they read a story in the paper of someone trapped by the belt in their burning or submerged car. In that case, they are planning for the least likely odds by ignoring the more likely. ie making a justification.

and yes, the baseball to the chest is an accident since the pitcher does not and cannot plan to throw with the exact timing needed to hit at the correct heart cycle of the batter/ump.

I'd think the same holds true with a punch. you can train towards the theoretical proper speed, angle and point...but the timing is left to chance. other factors such as the chance of preexisting heart conditions and health would play a part.

someone simply training to hit very hard with deep impact also has a chance of breaking a rib, and the rib penetrating the heart or other organs. or a rupture to internals could cause failure.

training for deep impact, or training for chance timing...guess it comes down to choice...do you wear the seatbelt or not.

I don't disagree that statistics can show trends, but you're using unrelated incidents to prove some kind of perspective. The correct scenario for comparison would be how many kids playing baseball were hit in the chest by a baseball and didn't die. Then you have "apples to apples" comparisons.

What you've done with the lightning comparison is like using "how many people drive red cars?", when the actual thing you're trying to figure out is "how many people got killed in wrecks driving red cars?" The missing fact would be the wreck... so you're trying to prove how many people were killed in wrecks, and then how many of those people were driving red cars. That tells you something more than the attributing something to the red car itself.

Statistically, using the right information you could determine how many died from heart attacks while driving a red car... how many pedestrians were hit by red cars... how many head-on collisions involved red cars and then use the "how many people drive red cars?" scenario to gain some perspective.

In this case, it's "how many kids play baseball... how many are hit in the chest with a baseball... how many die from being hit by a baseball... to how many die from being hit in the chest by a baseball..." You could even use the statistic of how many of the kids hit by a baseball were standing in the batter's box when hit...

Statistics involve "repeatable" information and their anomolies... not the field of dreams scenario where "She was from Iowa and I had once heard of Iowa"...

None of these incidents report the amount of force involved, the angle of inclination of the hit... a lot of very important details for determining the lethality of the hits and the differences in how the victim was actually struck.

DM training is a very repeatable skill, trained the same way, using the same angles, striking the same way... does that mean 100% success with a DM hit... no... but it provides a structure where the skill is actually practiced knowing what the expected results are.

We've had this discussion before, and you always try to take it out of the realm of comparison of the actual facts to isolated statistical anomolies. Force applied is a very quantifiable entity... if it hits at a 90 degree angle, it delivers 100% of it's energy... if it hits at 45 degrees, it delivers 70.7% of it's energy , at 30 degrees... half it's energy... and that's not real hard to understand. Applied to specific points in the body and skeletal structure of the body, why is it somehow suddenly an "unrepeatable skill"?

I would be willing to bet that if 100% of the information on these incidents were available, the angle of the hit, energy delivery, and velocity of the ball were all very close to the same in the final result. The differences would be attributable to the vectors determining the force delivery. Changes in the velocity of the ball would change the amount of force delivered, and the angle of inclination would determine how much of the force was delivered at the proper angle. It's simple physics and geometry.

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What man is a man that does not make the world a better place?... from "Kingdom of Heaven"